{"id":37847,"date":"2014-10-21T21:05:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T21:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37847"},"modified":"2014-10-21T21:05:14","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T21:05:14","slug":"the-many-meanings-of-the-haitian-declaration-of-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37847","title":{"rendered":"The many meanings of the Haitian declaration of independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

The many meanings of the Haitian declaration of independence<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

OUPblog: Oxford University Press\u2019s Academic Insights for the Thinking World<\/a>
\n2014-01-03<\/p>\n

Philippe R. Girard<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of History
\nMcNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana<\/em><\/p>\n

Two hundred and ten years ago, on 1 January 1804, Haiti<\/a> formally declared its independence from France<\/a> at the end of a bitter war<\/a> against forces sent by Napol\u00e9on Bonaparte<\/a>. This was only the second time, after the United States in 1776, that an American colony had declared independence, so the event called for pomp and circumstance. Haiti\u2019s generals, led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines<\/a>, gathered in the western city of Gona\u00efves<\/a>, where they listened to a public reading of the Declaration<\/a> by the mixed-race secretary Louis Boisrond-Tonnerre<\/a>. A handwritten original has yet to be found, but early imprints and manuscript copies have survived.<\/p>\n

The declaration is well known to Haitians, who celebrate its passage every year on 1 January, Haiti\u2019s national holiday. They mostly remember it for its fiery defiance. According the Haitian historian Thomas Madiou<\/a>, its author Boisrond-Tonnerre got the assignment after promising Dessalines that he would use \u201cthe skin of a white man\u201d as parchment, its \u201cskull\u201d as inkwell, and its \u201cblood\u201d as ink. \u201cWhat do we have in common with this people of executioners [the French]?\u201d he asked in the Declaration. \u201cThey are not our brothers, and never will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Declaration, which historians are just beginning to study in depth, was actually a layered text whose multiple meanings were tailored for six different audiences: the French, Creoles, Anglo-Americans, Latin Americans, mixed-race Haitians, and black Haitians…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The many meanings of the Haitian declaration of independence OUPblog: Oxford University Press\u2019s Academic Insights for the Thinking World 2014-01-03 Philippe R. Girard, Associate Professor of History McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana Two hundred and ten years ago, on 1 January 1804, Haiti formally declared its independence from France at the end of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21,459,8],"tags":[1062,18223,18224,18209,18208,3576,3575],"class_list":["post-37847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-history","category-media-archive","tag-haiti","tag-jean-jacques-dessalines","tag-louis-boisrond-tonnerre","tag-oupblog","tag-oupblog-oxford-university-presss-academic-insights-for-the-thinking-world","tag-philippe-girard","tag-philippe-r-girard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}